IV 

 VESALIUS AND THE NEW ANATOMY 



A MORE important writer than Berengar and one of the 

 greatest scientific investigators that has ever lived was 

 the Belgian, Andreas Vesalius, who was beginning his 

 work about the date of Berengar's death. Vesalius was 

 born at Brussels on the last hour of the last day of 

 the year 1514. Even as a boy he showed very great 

 interest in science. He was always observing nature 

 and constantly dissecting the bodies of any animals 

 that he could get. A taste for natural history is common 

 enough among boys and girls nowadays, but it was much 

 rarer then. Nowadays nature study is taught in many 

 schools, and it is easy to get books to help one. In his 

 day men were but just emerging from the Middle Ages, 

 when the study of nature was little thought of and no 

 such books had yet been written. Vesalius had there- 

 fore to find his own way. For such a boy there was 

 then only one profession possible, that of medicine. 



Vesalius therefore became a medical student, and he 

 studied first at the University of Louvain and afterwards 

 at Paris. We have already seen how anatomy was taught 

 in mediaeval times, and the methods of instruction at 

 Louvain and Paris had not improved much, if at all, on 

 those of the Middle Ages. Vesalius soon got tired of 

 hearing long passages of Galen read out by the professor. 

 He therefore determined to go to northern Italy, where 

 the newer and more scientific methods were being 



